This aircheck features the final hour of Eddie Rogers on WEAM before he made the big jump to CKLW. Rogers had been at WEAM for 3 years, a lengthy stint for the station whose long-time general manager seemed to favor the jock-du-jour plan. A year earlier, another WEAM personality, Bill Campbell (Gable), had left for WHBQ in Memphis and would later follow Rogers to CKLW.
Rogers started at WEAM in morning drive before moving to afternoons and was a superb talent. The aircheck reflects a time when singles sales had declined, and top-40 stations were looking for a way to address the surging popularity of albums.
At the time of this recording, WEAM was only about 3 years away from its demise. Most of the AM stations on the Washington dial had sub-par signals. At night, WEAM suffered out-of-town interference problems on the northeast side of the Washington market, problems audible on this aircheck as sunset approached. But for years WEAM was saved by the fact that its main competition, WPGC, was a daytimer.
Even as a daytime station, WPGC gave WEAM a run for its money. But when Washington became one of the earliest markets for FM dominance, WPGC-FM’s success spelled the end of WEAM as a top-40 operation.